That’s Ridiculous! Fed Barely Moves Markets But Boeing Lifts Dow to Record High

All three major indexes closed at record highs today, but the Dow needed Boeing's help to do it.

By

Ben Levisohn

July 26, 2017 5:30 p.m. ET

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The three major indexes closed at new highs today despite barley moving--and the Dow needed Boeing's (BA) help to do it.

Illustration:
Getty Images

The S&P 500 ticked up 0.03% to 2,477.83--a record high--while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.16% to 6,422.75. Then there's the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It gained 97.58 points, or 0.45% points, to 21,711.01, but Boeing, which gained 9.9% after reporting earnings today, contributed 1443.75 points to the blue-chip benchmark. Do the math, and without Boeing the Dow would have been down 46.17 points. Thank you Boeing!

The Fed meeting was supposed to be the highlight of the day, but it had almost no impact on the stock market, or even the Treasury market: The 10-year yield declined 0.043 percentage point to 2.285%. BMO's Ian Lyngen isn't surprised:

The Fed removed the "Somewhat" language in characterizing the fact that inflation is "running below 2 percent." -- this was a bid dovish. On the other hand, the Fed did offer more specific language on the timing of the balance sheet move, noting that it will happen "relatively soon" -- this replaced "this year" in a clear hawkish tilt. Overall, there were very few changes and it's not surprising that the Treasury market has done very little.

Bespoke Investment Group's Justin Walters notes that the S&P 500 has gone 264 trading days without even a 3% drop:

...it’s now been 264 trading days since the S&P 500 experienced just a 3% pullback. The current streak dates back to 11/4/16, which means that even with all that’s going on in DC these days, the stock market hasn’t fallen 3% since before the Trump victory back on 11/8/16...the 264-day streak without a 3%+ pullback is the 4th longest in the S&P 500’s history dating back to 1928. We’d have to go another 100+ days, however, to break the 370-day streak that went from 12/8/94 to 12/13/95.

While rallies don’t necessarily die of old age, it’s still important to remember that these streaks WILL come to an end at some point!

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